1975
by Doors
Summary: Once a month, for as long as he can remember, Remus has become a monster. In 1975, the monster starts to feel human again. Remus/Sirius. COMPLETE
1. January

**1975**

* * *

**i. january**

* * *

Once a month, Remus becomes a monster.

He sets off down that path to the shack alone, because the Other Remus is dangerous and he never wanted anyone to know anyway. His friends don't talk about it. He doesn't want them to. It's easier to pretend that he's Remus all the time, and never the Other. The Other one doesn't need friends.

In the winter, the nights in the north are too cold, really, for a young boy to be standing naked in a wooden hut. He shivers and he stares at the walls. They're walls _he's_ decorated with his own claws and his own teeth and sometimes his own blood and piss. Remus hates him.

He's never really had any friends before and he'd never realised how nice it was, but it's at times like this when he wants them the most. But _he_ doesn't; he only wants to tear things apart and to ruin them. Remus thanks his stars his friends have never met _him_.

It's easier, when he enters that shack, to forget about Remus and to be only the Other one. So that's what he does. He blanks everything out and focuses only on the beat of his heart and his breath fogging the air.

He's forgotten them all even before he changes.

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_Dedicated to Rish (aka starlight moon princess), for her love of WolfStar! :) Also for the Pairing Diversity Boot Camp using the prompt 'never'._


	2. February

**ii. february**

* * *

A cold wind blows up his spine as dawn breaks. He shivers and wakes alone. Mornings, he thinks, might be worse than the nights. In the mornings, he's got his own body back, but it feels wrong somehow. It feels like he's wearing someone else's coat.

He trudges up to the castle in the grey early morning without the aid of Madam Pomfrey and all his limbs feel wrong and his skin is too tight. It prickles and itches like he's wearing it inside out. It's not right, he thinks. It should be over in the mornings. That should be an end to it.

One night a month, that's all it is – isn't it? _No_, says a voice in his head. Maybe the Other Remus' voice, if the Other Remus could speak. _It's not one night a month. It is always. It is forever. It is inside you._

Inside him, and once a month, he is inside of it. And he wonders – what if one day he becomes the Other Remus, and what if one day he can't even tell the two apart?


	3. March

**iii. march**

* * *

Once a month, Remus feels like a monster.

He shouldn't be allowed to be at school, he thinks, watching first-years play by the lake and the first leaves of spring return to the trees. Sirius pokes him with the end of a twig and asks him if he's finished his Charms homework.

"Not yet," says Remus wearily. "I haven't had the time."

"No chance I can copy off it, then?" Sirius asks with a grin.

"Not this time," says Remus. "I won't be able to finish it tonight. I won't be... quite myself tonight."

"Right," says Sirius. "Say no more." For a moment Remus thinks he might be about to offer some words of comfort – _Of course you're still you; you're just a little hairier, that's all_. He wouldn't have believed it, but it would have helped.

But Sirius stands up and heads towards the castle instead saying he's going to look for James, and Remus is left alone for the rest of the evening and he's bitter and glad at the same time, because he knows it's no good mixing with monsters.


	4. April

**iv. april**

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Possibly the only good thing about his condition, ironically, is that the werewolf exclusively wants to prey on humans. It makes him sick to his stomach to imagine the things that the Other Remus must think about, but it does make spring time a little easier to bear. He can watch the birds flutter about and watch lambs gambol in the fields outside of Hogsmeade without wondering if the Other Remus would be thinking about how their blood would taste or how their bones would feel between his teeth. He can't look at human babies like that, and he prays to whatever god might be out there that he never becomes a father.


	5. May

**v. may**

* * *

Once a month, Remus feels less than human. James tries to give him Quidditch lessons and Remus just can't get the hang of it. It's not the Quidditch he cares about, really, but the fact that even in the little things, he's letting his friends down.

"Even Peter's got the hang of it!" bemoans James, gesturing helplessly at Remus who hasn't quite worked out how to perform even the most rudimentary Sloth Grip Roll.

"You're teaching him all wrong," says Sirius, floating over and readjusting Remus' hands. Remus tenses. He doesn't like to be touched. He doesn't like Sirius so close like that, so that Remus is breathing down his neck, smelling him. He knows the Other Remus is going to remember that, and he doesn't want him to. He doesn't want to be thinking about Sirius when he's out of his mind and tearing himself to shreds. Not Sirius. Not any of his friends.

_But you're not a human being_, says the voice that might have belonged to the Other Remus, _and you don't deserve friends._


	6. June

**vi. june**

* * *

In the summer, the days are long and hot and the nights are short. Remus is thankful for that. It is so much easier to confine his problem to one night a month when that night lasts barely five hours.

It is much easier to focus on his school work and to prepare for the end-of term exams when the daylight stretches long into the night and the moon doesn't rise. It is easier to put the night out of his mind and pretend that his life is all long summer days lazing on the grass by the lake, tickling Peter under the nose with the water-reeds to make him sneeze. He even finishes his Charms homework early enough for Sirius to have a look, and by the time he's supposed to head to the shack for the rising of the moon, everyone is in bed anyway.

But still, the moon does rise. Night follows day like it always does, and though it's easier to pretend life is just a lazy summer afternoon, the cracking of his own bones and the chill of the night air are always there to bring him back down to reality with a hard thump.


	7. July

**vii. july**

* * *

Once a month, Remus is not quite himself. On the last day of the summer term, he says goodbye to his friends and he leaves them at the station. James and Sirius are grinning, God only knows why, because inside, Remus is terrified. The only thing that makes him feel somewhat normal again in the days following the full moon is the fact that he has them there with him. They're human, and they make him feel a little bit human, too.

"I've got a feeling we're going to be seeing a lot more of each other next year," says Sirius, and he and James laugh. Even Peter titters. Remus can't quite work out what they mean. They already see almost too much of each other as it is. Not that he's complaining; after all, Sirius seems to have some idea of how Remus feels, or so he tells him. Summers aren't a lot of fun for him, either, he says, and Remus thinks he'll miss Sirius the most of all.


	8. August

**viii. august**

* * *

He might prefer letters over human contact, because they don't smell like people. They're just words on a page, really, despite the thought behind them, and it's good because the Other Remus can't understand words, or even think very much, Remus suspects.

He reads his letters from Sirius over and over again 'til he knows them word-for-word and he mumbles them to himself even as he changes and tries to keep his mind off the fact that his bones are poking out through his skin and he tries to remember that _he has friends_ and _he is human_ and it doesn't quite work but it's better than being alone.


	9. September

**ix. september**

* * *

Dumbledore makes him a prefect, and he can't quite work out why. He can't think of anyone less suited to responsibility.

"He probably thinks you'll be able to keep us in line," says Sirius seriously. "Talk some sense into us. Stop us breaking all those rules."

"Do you think I will?" asks Remus mildly.

"Doubt it." Sirius' face cracks into a grin. "But you'll certainly have fun trying."

Remus is sure that his friends' misbehaviour is about to increase tenfold, and he knows he's not going to be able to live up to the responsibility Dumbledore has given him. He wishes he could; he wishes he had it in him to be normal and sensible. But when Sirius' grins like that, it's hard to say why prefect duties should matter so much as enjoying himself and actually _living_.


	10. October

**x. october**

* * *

He never quite finds out whose idea it really was, and it's madness, he tells them. They can't be running around with a werewolf after dark. The Other Remus hates them, no matter his own feelings about them. But they don't listen. They come to him anyway, and he finds that the Other Remus doesn't want to hurt them. They're not human, so with them, it's not the same. Maybe it's not as dangerous as he'd thought.

He doesn't remember much at first but the clashing of teeth and claws and the growling of a black dog. But in time it comes to him, and as the night wears on, it begins to feel a little less reckless, because he remembers who they are.

He remembers who they are, and he remembers that he loves them. And he remembers the clashing of teeth and the feel of the forest under his feet and the beating of Sirius' heart.

And the Other Remus seems to feel a lot more like the real Remus. And once a month, Remus starts to feel human again.


	11. November

**xi. november**

* * *

Remus wakes in the cold morning air and for once he is not alone. For once he awakes to the sound of someone else's breathing and he feels it warm on his cheek and he does not feel so much of a monster as he used to. For once, returning to his own body doesn't make him feel like he's been shoved carelessly back into it. For once, someone else is the _beast_, but this one, he knows, is something of a guardian. He is glad of Sirius. For once he doesn't rush out of the shack and back to the castle. For once, something good has come of the Other one.

Except it's starting not to feel so _other_ any more.


	12. December

**xii. december**

* * *

Remus never thought the day would come when he'd be looking forward to _that_ night. He never thought there would be a time when being the Other Remus was just as good as being himself. In fact, he'd never thought that he would consider it to be a part of himself at all, and yet here he was, warm and toasty by the fireside with the sounds of Christmas carols drifting across the room and wishing he was in the forest instead.

He never thought he'd be happy. Hell, he never thought he'd feel anything close to human. But he understands the wolf now. He understands it because of _them _(because of _him_). And when he's human, he feels like that skin fits just as well. Beside him in the armchair, Sirius laughs at something and nudges him, and at last, he feels like he belongs.

And once and month and more, Remus is happy just to be Remus.

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_The End_

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_Thank you to everyone who reviewed, followed, or favourited!_


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